Walled Lake cancels classes after bus drivers call in sick

May 8, 2013

Written by

Tammy Stables Battaglia

Detroit Free Press Staff Writer

Classes are canceled at Walled Lake Consolidated Schools today after a quarter of the district’s 102 bus drivers called in sick this morning.

A union official said the absences were not planned.

“Due to the absences -- since more than 11,000 of our 15,400 students are transported -- we are unable to have school,” said district spokeswoman Judy Evola.

The district is offering all-day childcare for children currently in before- and after-school childcare programs. Advance placement testing will also take place as scheduled for those secondary students able to find transportation to their school.

The sick-out comes less than a week after the district’s school board voted Thursday to privatize the transportation department. Board members voted unanimously to hire Dean Transportation to provide services beginning with the 2013-14 school year to save the district about $1.4 million a year, Evola said.

“We are facing a $10-million deficit and the district will save more than $4.2 million over the three years of the contract,” she said. “We have fantastic transportation employees and bus drivers. This is a budgetary issue. That’s why we want to employ the vast majority of drivers with Dean Transportation.”

The district’s 120 transportation department employees will begin an interview and rehiring process this week, she added. The district will no longer pay employee benefits, which will be handled by the new company. Evola could not immediately provide how much the district currently pays to operate the transportation department and the amount of the contract with Dean Transportation.

Ann Ridge, president of the Walled Lake Transportation Association, said there was not an organized work stoppage today.

Ridge, a 22-year bus driver, said she is sick and called off today.

“This was no planned action on our part,” said Ridge. “We care about the kids in this district. But the stress my members have been under, it’s awful. You don’t know if you’ve got a job, you don’t know if you don’t have a job.”

Ridge said district human resource officers held a meeting with drivers Tuesday night. She did not attend.

“I received a lot of phone calls from crying people upset about what they heard,” said Ridge,